When a couple divorces it can affect not only them but friends as well. Mick and I found this years ago, when a couple we were friends with divorced. We used to get together on a regular basis with this couple for a meal and to play cards – five hundred was usually the game of choice.
We thought we were good friends and would have said they appeared to have a happy marriage. Then one evening we got a phone call to say they wouldn’t be coming. Soon after that one of them rang to say that they were getting a divorce. To say we were staggered was an understatement. Shattered would have been more like it.
Many thoughts went through our minds. What happened? How did we not pick up the fact that anything was wrong with their marriage? Following on the heels of that was the thought that if could happen to them, could it happen to us? It made us re-examine our own marriage for any cracks or problem areas.
This was our first experience of being closely connected with divorce. And we didn’t know how to handle it.
The hardest thing to fathom was that we never picked up that there was anything wrong between them. It made us wonder what sort of friendship we had, that they felt the need to pretend in front of us. It made us realize that often what people see about a marriage can be a facade and not the reality at all. That so much more goes on that people never see.
After we heard the news we tried to maintain relationships with both of them and invited them individually for meals. It wasn’t an amicable divorce. We tried to be careful and not get drawn into the bitterness between them, so we didn’t talk about one to the other. But apparently that wasn’t the right move either as far as this couple was concerned. In the end the couple divorced but we also lost two friends because we tried to stay neutral and not take sides.
That happened a lot of years ago now. Mick and I were reminded of them yesterday and still wonder what we should have done. What have others done when friends divorced?
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Dealing with Your Friend’s Divorce